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208 February 2021 FEB 2021 JOURNAL ISSUE # 208 PUBLISHED BY FEDERATION OF RAIL ORGANISATIONS NZ INC : PLEASE SEND CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDITOR, SCOTT OSMOND, BY E-MAIL : [email protected] FRONZ Update 1 Russell Wiseman 3 IN THIS FRONZ Conference 2021 1 News From Our Members 4 ISSUE Hamilton Auckland Commuter Train 2 Classifieds 12 Invercargill Station 2 Future Mainline Excursions 13 Pukekohe Station 3 Picture of the Month 14 FRONZ UPDATE Over the weekend of February 13 and 14, the FRONZ executive met to review the strategic direction of FRONZ. We had not met face-to-face since March 2020! The executive looked at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for both the heritage sector and FRONZ itself. We also took a long, hard look at where we are now and how we can make the organisation more appropriate for the needs of our members in the immediate future. We separated these into two broad areas, firstly those affecting the rail heritage industry as a whole, and secondly those affecting the way FRONZ interacts with our members as well as other external agencies. Prior to the meeting feedback had been sought from our members and this was considered during these discussions. We considered how to improve member engagement and several ideas were put forward and discussed. Next we dis- cussed whether the present Executive structure should be altered to accommodate the present conditions in the indus- try and considered how new talent could be introduced to our group. No changes will be made of course before they are fully discussed and adopted by the membership in general. We also met with Sheena McGuire from Kiwirail. She is Access Provision Advisor and works with our sector when co- ordinating mainline excursion arrangements, as well as managing the Kiwirail “Public Good Fund”. Sheena is the gateway to all interactions with KiwiRail, with the exception of the Heritage Technical Committee who can deal directly with Andrew Hunt as required for engineering issues. Photo: Margaret Gordon takes the FRONZ team through our SWOT Analysis. From Left: Grant Craig, David Maciulaitis, Guy Wellwood, Margaret, Bruce Shal- ders, Rob Martin (obscured), Clark Simmonds, Mike Anderson. Photo: Jeff Tol- lan. FRONZ CONFERENCE 2021 Following the FRONZ Executive meeting, we can advise we have confirmed that we are going ahead as planned with the 2021 FRONZ Conference at Gisborne from 4-7 June 2021. We held off making this decision due to the Covid situation and after balancing all the options have made the decision to go ahead with planning for the event. Plans will be similar to those proposed for 2020, including a run on the Gisborne City Vintage Rail on Sunday afternoon and a visit to the East Coast Museum of Technology on Monday morning. Conference sessions and accommodation will be at the Emerald Hotel. As usual the sessions will be all day Saturday, Sunday morning and our Annual Awards dinner will be Sunday evening. Keep an eye on the FRONZ web site at https://www.fronz.org.nz/conferences for more details as they are available. We expect registration to be available also here from 1 April. JOURNAL IS FOR ALL OF YOUR MEMBERS. PLEASE FORWARD IT TO ALL ON YOUR E-MAIL LISTS 2 LAUNCH DATE FOR HAMILTON-AUCKLAND COMMUTER RAIL SERVICE ANNOUNCED. From Stuff: 10 February. Tuesday, April 6, has been set as the new launch date for Te Huia, the new Hamilton -Auckland passenger rail service. From day one there will be two return ser- vices on weekdays to get commuters to Papakura in time for the start of the work- day. From Monday to Friday, Te Huia will de- part Frankton at 5.46am and 6.28am, stopping at Rotokauri and Huntly. The return service will depart from Papakura at 4.42pm and 6.25pm. Bee Card fares – also used for Hamilton’s bus services – will be $12.20 from Hamil- ton and $7.80 from Huntly. Cash fares will be available. For the first few months, Te Huia will operate on select Saturdays only, starting with April 17 due to limited availability of the rail track as a result of the ongoing Auckland rail project and Metro maintenance work. Each of the two trains has four carriages with free wifi, air conditioning, heating, a café bar and each will be able to carry 150 passengers. There is a toilet within each carriage and plenty of tables, power and USB points on board to allow for productive working spaces. Waikato regional councillor Hugh Vercoe, who chairs the regional transport committee and the rail governance working group, said he was thrilled to confirm the new start date. “This service will transform public transport and the way people in the Waikato travel between here and Auckland. There’s real opportunity for us to expand the service into the future, opening it up to even more Waikato communities. “All stations are ready to go, and we’ll be holding public open days on March 27 and 28, giving families the chance to walk through the carriages to check out the facilities.” Covid-19 and "fatigue” in some of the tracks in the Auckland area, which needed repairs, resulted in the service being shunted back from an initial early November start date. More information about the service is available at tehuiatrain.co.nz. Photo: Mark Taylor/Stuff INVERCARGILL BUSINESSMAN BUYS INVERCARGILL RAILWAY STATION From Stuff: 9 February. Prominent Invercargill businessman Scott O’Donnell is behind the purchase of the former Invercargill Railway Station. HWR Property, of which O’Donnell is a director, has purchased the former railway station on Leven St off the YMCA. The site, including land to the north and south of the building, is about 3500sqm. The purchase was a “punt”, O’Donnell said. “I think it’s one of those key strategic assets we need to do something with, I don’t know what ... we have got no need for it, or use for it, yet.” The 1970s concrete building was structurally strong, though it needed some spouting and roofing work done, he said. Terms were agreed with the YMCA before Christmas and the sale would go through in March. Business was about taking punts, O’Donnell said. “You buy something and see what the market does over time, and see what you can use it for. I haven’t got a use for it right now but it’s a decent asset.” O’Donnell is also the man behind the Invercargill CBD rebuild. YMCA Southland chief executive Vanessa Hughey said it relocated its education and youth services team from the for- mer railway station building to its other YMCA site in Invercargill, in Tay St, about seven months ago. Prior to that, the YMCA had operated out of the old railway station for about 25 years. “It’s a beautiful old building but when it came to running our programmes out of there, it wasn’t fit for purpose for the YMCA. “So we decided we were going to relocate our education programmes to Tay St ... which is a nicer environment for young peo- ple to learn.” The YMCA team was now all under the same roof in Tay St, she said. Photo: Ka- vinda Herath/stuff 3 PUKEKOHE STATION FUTURE Auckland Transport has told Franklin Local Board it is unable to spend any more money on plans to move the Puke- kohe train station away from its present site. It has already spent $15,000 on a report that found relocating the station is impractical and could cost almost $2.7mil- lion. But the board asked AT to fund further work because its study only looked at moving the building to a new site and making it fit for purpose and building code compliant, and not at other options such as using only sections of the build- ing. AT says its report met the terms of the original request and that, having spent $15,000, it cannot fund further work. However, AT has suggested other ways it can support the board and community to protect Franklin’s rail heritage. The Local Government Act says AT’s purpose is to contribute to an effective, efficient, and safe Auckland land transport system in the public interest. It says while it funded the initial work in good faith, further funding does not contribute to that purpose. The board has been told the size and planned use of the platform means there is little chance of retaining any element of the station on the platform. AT says it is willing to support third-party or board-led work on celebrating Pukekohe’s rail heritage and could provide advice to any design study, save parts of the station during demolition for re-use providing the cost of demolition is not affected, and could incorporate pic- tures that capture the history of rail in the area into a new shelter’s protec- tive coating. The board will liaise on next steps with the Franklin Historical Society and Heritage Forum, which have been advocating for the preservation of the station. Rail Heritage Trust give the following details of the station. Pukekohe is a standard, but extended, Troup-era class B station, buily in 1913,somewhat modified. It is a tim- ber island-platform structure with ve- randahs on both sides. It has a corru- gated-iron roof, gabled at both ends, and it is clad with lapped or rusticat- ed weatherboards. There is a string of double-hung sash windows along each side. It is unclear to what extent the building has been added to. RUSSELL WISEMAN Russell Wiseman passed away 21 February aged 93.
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